Pukenamu Queen’s Park design price tag leaves Whanganui deputy mayor ‘gobsmacked’

Taking out the buildings, Pukenamu Queen's Park covers around five hectares. Photo / Bevan Conley.

The $425,000 design budget for the Pukenamu Queen’s Park landscaping has left Whanganui’s deputy mayor “gobsmacked”.

Helen Craig told a recent operations and performance committee meeting the cost to design the project was far beyond what she would have contemplated and far beyond what the community would have contemplated for a design “and not implementation”.

“We are a tiny, tiny council,” Craig said.

“It worries me that council would enter into a contract of that amount without doublechecking expectations.

“Dollars are just going out the door. It’s a huge amount of money. My gosh, if I had $425,000 for town centre regeneration implementation I would be thrilled.”

Craig is the chair of the town centre regeneration sub-committee.

The landscape designers, Warren and Mahoney, are the architectural firm responsible for the Sarjeant Gallery redevelopment’s Pātaka o Sir Te Atawhai Archie John Taiaroa wing.

Whanganui District Council chief executive David Langford said the cost for the design had been compared to industry standards.

Typically, design work for these kinds of projects should represent “circa 6 to 16 per cent of the total budget” and the council’s design cost fitted into that range, he said.

It will be completed by October/November.

“The team is working alongside the Sarjeant Gallery project and liaising with the Sarjeant Gallery Trust,” Langford said.

“The priority is to focus any of the early implementation to the immediate surrounds of the [Sarjeant] building so you have a landscape that complements it, ready for the opening.”

Craig told the Chronicle while it was great to have a plan that would set the scene for the next 10-20 years, its cost had taken up most of the project’s budget.

“When I see this plan maybe I’ll eat my words but budgets are incredibly tight.

“I don’t know how we are going to afford to implement any of the designs that will be in the plan, not for quite a while, anyway.”

Whanganui deputy mayor Helen Craig. Photo / Bevan Conley

Money for implementation needs to come through the council’s long-term plan.

Langford estimated the “significant project” would cost between $5 million and $6m to complete and would take years because even excluding the buildings, the park was around five hectares, he said.

The Sarjeant Gallery will reopen at the park next year.

Councillor Kate Joblin said the debate around the Pukenamu Queen’s Park design budget was one of the poorest she had been part of on council.

The landscaping project was a late addition to the agenda.

“The long-standing process at this council, and indeed good governance, is that if you’ve got a raft of detailed questions, ask them ahead of the meeting instead of turning up and hoping to catch officers out,” Joblin said.

“It’s not good enough.”

Councillors Jenny Duncan and Rob Vinsen pushed back on Joblin’s comments.

Duncan said the Pukenamu Queen’s Park project had been “floating around for at least 22 years” and the cost of the design back then was $25,000.

Langford said that figure was to buy the intellectual property rights to concept sketches only.

If the council “mucked around” and didn’t get onto doing a project, zeros would be added down the track, Duncan said.

“Had we acted then we would have had the plan done and we would have had the work done, probably for about $2m.

“I continue on with a degree of discomfort around this. I think it’s appropriate for us to ask the questions that we want and make the comments that we need.

“If it causes discomfort around the room, I’m sorry, it’s just the way it is.”

Speaking to the Chronicle, Langford said the council had gone through a competitive process to get the project designer and a “good masterplan for one of our flagship parks” would be the result.

“Committing to delivering that plan is a long-term decision and we don’t have to bite it all off in one go,” he said.

Langford said the budget had been included in last year’s annual plan.

“It should not have been a surprise but I appreciate that councillors are busy and it’s more than a year ago now.

“People’s memories aren’t bulletproof.”

Mike Tweed is an assistant news director and multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.